State and the citizens are interdependent. The state provides education to its population with the hope that the educated population will later be tax-paying citizens. The state depends on taxes for the daily running of its obligations (Schaefer, 2011). The citizens in turn depend on the government to provide them with the necessary environment to acquire the education. This includes but is not limited to subsidizing the cost of education, providing student loans with low-interest rates, and scholarships. An educated person depends on education to get a good job and live a quality life.
The acquisition of a good education is dependent on the availability of money. Without money, it is almost impossible to acquire education. Money serves to enable us to get an education. With the academic papers, we can then apply for the desired job. Education thus indirectly enables us to get paid. A good income enables one to buy and acquire some things that are necessary for the daily smooth running of one’s life and activities accompanying it. In this transcript, Americans have resorted to attending school in Canada because of financial constraints. The students who study in Canada report cost as being among the important factors they considered before deciding to study in Canada.
Lending institutions give loans to students either studying at home or abroad. The institutions depend on these loans to make a profit. Profit earned by an institution is then used to run the institution. Operations funded in this way may include paying staff salaries and acquiring fixed assets. Failure to fund these operations adequately may lead to poor performance. Without the institution, jobs would be lost. So, while the loans help students get an education, interest generated through this business is necessary for the lending institutions to continue being in existence.
Sporting activities are necessary for some people to unwind after a day’s work. For some people, entertainment is more or less the same as sport. In this case, people depend on sport for good entertainment. Proper relaxation after work has been found to boost the productivity of an individual. Good productivity of workers is desired by many companies.
To travel to another country, one needs a passport. The passport enables a traveler to get into another country easily and legally. The existence of the passport is pegged on the need by people to travel to another country. If people were to stop traveling abroad, passports would not exist. The immigration department owes its existence in part to people traveling in and out of the country. Good infrastructure enables ease of travel between countries and within the country. Vehicles are bought because there is a need for transportation and the presence of at least some road network. On the other hand, existence of roads and the need for better and faster transport enables the sale of vehicles.
The functionalist theory, therefore, presupposes that everything happens for a reason. It claims that everything in our social environment is a complex whole that has constituent parts. The whole system depends on the functions of its parts.
References
Schaefer, R.T. (2011). Sociology: A Brief Introduction (9th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill